A child playing in the surf on North Carolina’s Outer Banks made a unique find on the beach: part of a human jawbone.
The Town of Duck said the jawbone is about three inches long and has four teeth still attached. The child’s family turned in the macabre find to a lifeguard, who then handed it over to police.
The jawbone, it turned out, is not the start of some murder mystery, or at least not one for today’s police. After examining photos of the bone and teeth, a forensic pathologist at the Office of the State Medical Examiner in Greenville said the bone was “historic.”
Whoever the bone came from, the pathologist said, “likely was not alive in modern society,” according to a news release from the Town of Duck. The pathologist could not tell just how old the bone is, the town said.
Photos shared by the town show the blackened jawbone, still sandy from the beach, with four teeth attached.
The medical examiner said, based on the age, the jawbone was not part of an open criminal case. Instead, the pathologist said, the artifact should be considered more of an archaeological find.
The jawbone is still with the Town of Duck Police Department, but the town plans to send it to the Office of the State Archaeologist in Raleigh.
The town said the police chief shared details about the find with the state archaeologist in case they want to explore the area further for other artifacts.